FROM HELSINKI

Arrived in the relatively tiny (500,000 inhabitants) Finnish capital of Helsinki on Friday.

I've done the requisite sightseeing (churches/boat tour/museum), but have mostly spent the three days here preparing for the next phase of my travels....and eating.

I feel like my travels are going to end up breaking down into five distinct phases:

-Africa
-Europe
-Asia (plus western Russia)
-Australia/New Zealand/south Pacific islands
-South America

After doing no tours over the past few months, I start up three (virtually) straight ones in a row tomorrow in St. Petersburg.

Tomorrow's tour takes me, over 21 days, all the way eastbound through Russia and Mongolia and into China.

The day that tour ends, I begin another 21-day tour just within China that ends in Hong Kong. After a few days "on my own" (maybe not??) in Hong Kong, I head to Vietnam to begin an 18-day tour that includes Cambodia and finishes in Thailand.

In Thailand, Eric and Brian (and Yasmin?) are joining me for a week which should be fun.

From there, I know the spots I want to visit, but I'm not positive of the order and whether I want to do them independently or on a tour.

So back to Helsinki where I sit now. Kinda like this city. It certainly has more of an eastern European feel than the other (Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen) Nordic capitals, which is attractive to me at this very moment. Still lots of english speakers, still lots of pretty blondes, still expensive (thought not as bad as Norway).

As a side note, the hotel (Kamp) I'm residing in is the best of any I've hit so far in seven months on the road.

Exemplary service, top-notch Michelin-rated Japanese restaurant (had the omakase last night), a lobby library with EVERY Lonely Planet tour book, great upper-floor nightclub (with Hendrick's gin stocked), outdoor cafe streetside seating, and a 40-inch Philips Plasma HD tv in my huge room.

The elevatosr have doors on both sides and the one that opens at your floor is the one that leaves you closest to your room. Clever.

Oh....and the perfect bathroom for my tastes...marble bathtub (with rubber ducky), large trash can without lid (my pet peeve), and a huge powerful shower.

And of course, the room had an iron and ironing board.

Why do I think I'm the only one who will read these last five paragraphs???

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry